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mPT - The Clone Wars

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So, I promised to brain dump in here the thoughts and ideas I've been mulling over for xhonzi's interpretation of "The Mulligan Prequel Trilogy" or mPT.  I've decided to break each major subject into its own thread, even though each thread may not get a lot of traffic.  The idea there is to keep the subject from wandering too far, though I do know that this is OT.com afterall.

Primer: Read my How Space War Works thread.

Also, let me try to give some credit where it is due.  While many of these ideas were devloped outside of the OT.com influence, many others were developed by or in conjunction with members here, but I won't be giving specific credit because I can't remember who said what/where/when.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Okay, so this is my interpretation of the Clone Wars.  It's in-work, and subject to completely change, but this is what I'm working with.

The Clone Wars, like World War I and World War II, is a series of wars involving most of the same forces.  War breaks out and armies and navies fight it out, and some sort of peace is established, but the victors of the previous wars didn't go so far as to completely decimate their enemies... meaning that war breaks out a decade or so later.

The Clone Wars collectively, and the last war as depicted in the MPT are so devastating that the Galaxy is mostly in shambles at its final conclusion.  This motivates the political leaders and the people to restructure the Republic into an Empire.  Sacrficing liberties in the name of peace.

At the start of the mPT, there is no Army/Navy of the Republic.  Think of it like the European Union or the Allies of WWII.  Each member state (planet) has some sort of military, and they work in concert at times of major crisis.  During the war, one of the restructuring actions the Republic takes is to unify all allied forces.  At that point in time, it's a ragtag assembly of uniforms, alien races, and ships.  But as time goes on, a standard uniform and ship line begin to emerge.  Also does the idea of humans being given all of the leadership roles.

The final Clone War is the setting for all of the mPT.  It starts a year or so prior to the 1st movie and it concludes with the 3rd movie.

Cloning.  This deserves its own thread, but let me tackle it briefly here.  I'm thinking that the Republic has outlawed cloning (probably due to previous wars) and that only the enemy has cloning capability.  These enemies are the Mandalorians.  Not all of which are clones and there is more than one template from which the clones come.  I'll leave it at this: the bad guys strengthen their numbers through cloning, and the technology and knowledge is (allegedly) destroyed at the end of the mPT.

Warfare: It was my strong desire to figure out how to do an evenly matched war.  However, I don't think that's possible- at least I can't figure it out.  So, similar to the Rebellion-Empire war, this war will be more of a guerilla war.  Though the tables will be turned.  It will be the omnipresent Republic defending against "terrorist" like attacks of the Mandalorians.  The Mandalorians will seek to blow up the "Death Stars" of the Republic, just like the Rebellion did of the Empire.  But they won't have Death Stars, exactly, but you know what I mean.

It's something of a surprise for the end of the first movie, but it will be shown that the Mandalorians are more of a threat- more successful and efficient- this time around.  It will be revealed at the end that Dark Jedi are working with the Mandalorians, increasing their focus and power.

This knowledge (the involvment of the Dark Jedi) will bring some Jedi out of the woodwork.  It's their horse to shoot, so to speak, and so they will organize to fight their own battle.  The Jedi, previous to this, are not an official "group" but more like samurai who are out doing their own thing...  The war causes them to organize- which makes it easier for their enemies to take them out.

Star Wars consists almost evenly of Space Battles and Ground Battles.  I'm not quite sure how to really make that work, since it seems that Space would reign supreme.  How quickly would the Battle of Hoth have been over if some TIE Bombers zipped in and bombed the Shield Generator instead of having to drop the walkers off a couple miles out and wait for them to saunter in.  Or even better, have a Star Destroyed bomb it from space.  I'm sure Hoth doesn't have a fancy planetary shield or anything.  However, the Mandalorians will be trying to cripple the infrastructure of the Republic, and they would attack planets with significant mining facilities, harvest facilities, and industrial capabilities.  If the Mandalorians have a mind to capture these facilities intact, then they wouldn't just bomb them from space.

Anyways... I'm rambling here...  So I'll stop for now.  More as I remember what else I wanted to say here, or if a discussion develops.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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kittu said:

Star Wars is not only entertaining, but more importantly it is the message that matters. The familiar thematic conflicts of "Good vs. Evil", "Man vs. Machine", and "Government vs. Individual Rights" are timeless.

 More like "Pod People vs. Machine". XD

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Just in case it wasn't clear, my intentions weren't to interpret the reasons the Clone Wars TV show is on the air, but rather to discuss alternative ways the Clone Wars could be presented in a rewrite of the prequel trilogy.

I have to assume you all knew this, given the description in the original post, and the fact that this thread is in the "Script Rewriting" forum, but I'll give you benefit of the doubt.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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xhonzi,

I like a lot of your ideas and you put a lot of thought into them. While I don't have a lot of time to post right now, just wanted to express that I appreciate you keeping this section of the forum alive.

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Thanks.  Post some details on which you liked, when you get a chance.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Time

Hey, what happened to kittu's post?  I haven't seen them just go *poof* like that before.

Have you sketched anything out or thought about how you would do the first film?

Yeah, I have some stuff.  I was going to post a few more pages on "setting" and "characters" before getting on with the story...  but I sort of got off track.

Do you see the Republic as corrupt in the traditional sense?  I see it more as "hamstrung" in the sense that it's so weighed down by bureaucracy that they can't really make a lot of good decisions.  Sure, some very corrupt individuals in there, but it's not like the whole republic is entirely crap.  It might be a bad government, but it's not as bad as The Empire.  It something you wish you could go back to when The Empire takes over.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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xhonzi said:

Hey, what happened to kittu's post?  I haven't seen them just go *poof* like that before.

Who?

I did a forum search for "kittu" which turned up nothing...of course, given the accuracy of the search function, probably means that this kittu person has posted in every single thread on ot.com.

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Still quoted in post #4 #3: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/mPT-The-Clone-Wars/post/436019/#TopicPost436019

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Maybe that quote came from a different thread?

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I can assure you it did not.  It was the first reply to my post, so I came in to see whether it was praise or condemnation.  Instead, it was... confusion.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Time
 (Edited)

xhonzi said:

Hey, what happened to kittu's post?  I haven't seen them just go *poof* like that before.

Have you sketched anything out or thought about how you would do the first film?

Yeah, I have some stuff.  I was going to post a few more pages on "setting" and "characters" before getting on with the story...  but I sort of got off track.

Do you see the Republic as corrupt in the traditional sense?  I see it more as "hamstrung" in the sense that it's so weighed down by bureaucracy that they can't really make a lot of good decisions.  Sure, some very corrupt individuals in there, but it's not like the whole republic is entirely crap.  It might be a bad government, but it's not as bad as The Empire.  It something you wish you could go back to when The Empire takes over.

 

Can't wait to see it.

No, it's corrupt. A few American administrations are my inspiration for the Republic. Yeah, it's not Nazi Germany (The Empire), but at the top level it is corrupt nonetheless.

I think we also agree that the story should begin in medias res. I think the story should open a Clone War or two after the first one. Basically with the Mandalorians attacking from the opening scenes. I would however try not to present the Mandalorians in a totally black-and-white evil sense. I think a lot of "normal" people would do whatever they could to keep their race alive.

The Sith would be evil, yeah, but even they would be somewhat misguided or maybe just their philosophy would be "different". I'd really like to go back to the religion of the Force. The Sith are just the other side of the coin. For example, Suffering. Suffering can be seen as beneficial and the Taoism Way of Suffering and the Four Noble Truths is an example of how I'd like to present the Dark-Side. They believe in using things like suffering and see them as necessary and beneficial. The Sith would believe in things like "survival of the fittest", compassion being weakness, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, etc.

1. The Nature of Suffering (Dukkha):
      "This is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering."[8][9]


Really only Palpatine would probably be absolutely evil with no shades of gray or reason for being so.

I kind of have an inspiration for most of the characters, relationships, or things happening in the galaxy. Just have to work things out. Finding the time and someone to bounce ideas off who is interested and has the same kind of vision is the hard part though.

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xhonzi said:

Hey, what happened to kittu's post?  I haven't seen them just go *poof* like that before.

Spam posts are deleted and spam accounts banned.

The current trend with spammers is to copy and paste text related to the thread topic from Yahoo! Answers, thus giving the impression that it's a real forum post. (That particular post came from here.)

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That sounds ridicoulous to me. I mean, if they are going to bother to read, read, copy and paste, why not just write a post of their own?

I mean.....I mean...jeez, it blows my mind...!

*head asplode*

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I thought it was a goofy post... I just didn't realize how goofy.  Thanks for taking out the trash, Moth3r.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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xhonzi,

How do you handle Palpatine in your story? Doesn't it seem kind of illogical that he would wait 60 years to make a power grab? What was he doing before then? What are his origins?

Lately, I've been re-thinking a lot of what I thought should have happened with Palps as well as how the clones should have been, and cloning in Star Wars in general. I think it needed to be the focus of the story and not something that was introduced at the end of the second movie. How do you see it?

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 (Edited)

What I have planned for Palpatine I know isn't going to be very popular.  Most of the time, other people's ideas are met with, "Hmm... I don't know, that seems to be as bad (or worse!) as the Prequels we have right now..."  But my Palpatine plans are more commonly met with:

PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY:

NOOooooooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooo!

 

And so I'll do it in another thread, just to keep that kind of response out of this one.  ;)

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Time

One more comment about the Jedi in this timeframe, which I sort of hinted at here:

The Jedi, previous to this, are not an official "group" but more like samurai who are out doing their own thing...  The war causes them to organize- which makes it easier for their enemies to take them out.

Most people are a little suspicious of the Jedi at this point in time.  The back to back Clone Wars are blamed on the Jedi.  Not because of anything specific they did... but more for not stopping them in the first place.  The Jedi are supposed to help keep the peace- the wars have been anything buy peace.  A lot of people look to the Jedi to throw off their non-agressive ways and forecefully bring peace to the galaxy.  The fact that they haven't means that a lot of people have lost hope and trust in the Jedi.  Less devout Jedi have begun to leave the order and stopped self identifying as such to avoid the persecution.

When the masterminds of this second (and last) Clone War are revealed to be Dark Jedi, then the Jedi organize to fight back.  Because the Dark Jedi are their responsibility, and because they are besmirching their good name, they rally to defeat them.  People get behind them then.  And they are rock stars for a season... then the Dark Times begin...

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Time

After making lots of changes to what I had previously decided to do...

I've been thinking lately, should the clones be the Mandalorians? Part of the reason Boba Fett became such a popular character is that he had no back story, he was mysterious. Maybe making a new race would be a better idea. Lucas once said his idea for Boba Fett came from The Man Without a Name, which obviously he later scrapped. But I kind of like that idea, I'm thinking that they can just be left out of the prequels, they only bacame important because of the EU.

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 (Edited)

Or it can add to the mystery.

If the the NEW empire decimates the Mandaloreans in EP3, the emporer can take over the clones and tech for stormtroopers.  In a sense, disbanding the Mandalorean military and outlawing any ties to it (uniforms, etc).

Therefore, in ESB, you have this bounty hunter dressed in a forbidden uniform, yet being called on by the empire to capture our heroes.

That's kind of intriguing...no?

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 (Edited)

I don't know why, but I just hate the idea of stormtroopers being clones. Although, I hate the idea of Jedi willingly leading clones even more, that's beside the point! =)

A few things I don't like about it, I guess is that in SW they have different voices for starters, they're also different heights. Also when Luke and Han are in disguise, no one notices them as any different from the others even though they are not even close to the same height. I don't think they were ever supposed to be clones, honestly.

But apart from that what I really don't like is that I don't think the clone technology can be around in SW. It just wouldn't make sense at all in the OT. If the Emperor wants someone to replace Vader like he did Luke, why doesn't he just clone him? Or why doesn't he just clone 100 Vaders? It really doesn't make sense in the PT as it is now either to be honest. Why clone Jango? Should have just cloned a million Darth Maul's -- game over.

Another note, is that I just think that the PT should stand on their own. A read a post the other day about how the SW world seems to be just too small because everyone is related to everyone and everything. I'd just like to stay away from that whole thing.